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Delhi High Court asks Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi to appear before lower court in corruption case

Xinhua, December 7, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Delhi High Court Monday ordered opposition Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul to appear before a lower court Tuesday in connection with a graft case.

This was a huge blow to the Congress Party that had approached the High Court and sought to quash the summons of the lower court, asking the Gandhis to appear before it in the case.

The Gandhis, along with some senior party leaders, face allegations that they illegally acquired property worth millions belonging to the now-defunct National Herald newspaper.

An upset Congress immediately resorted to damage control mode, saying the Gandhis were innocent and that it would move the Supreme Court against the High Court order as early as Tuesday morning.

"We will move the Supreme Court Tuesday morning. It is a vacuous case," Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, also a lawyer who appeared for the Gandhis, told the media in the national capital.

The case was filed by a senior leader of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Subramanian Swamy, alleging corruption, cheating and criminal conspiracy on part of the Congress leaders.

According to the BJP leader, the Congress leaders tried to acquire the newspaper's properties in Delhi, worth millions, by paying peanuts in form of an interest-free loan to it.

The Congress party has claimed the case was politically motivated to defame the Gandhis and there was no merit in the allegations.

The daily was founded in 1938 by India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of Congress party, but it was shut down by Sonia Gandhi in 2008 due to falling circulation and financial loss. Endit